


Loving Jacob

by Sectumsempra



Category: The Blacklist (TV)
Genre: F/M, the boat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-05
Updated: 2015-08-05
Packaged: 2018-04-13 04:24:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4507650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sectumsempra/pseuds/Sectumsempra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I don't miss Tom," she says, as they're having breakfast on the boat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Loving Jacob

**Author's Note:**

> Some small things might be off due to the time since I watched the show and some things I couldn't find the answer to (like how long they were married), so forgive me for that.

”I don't miss Tom,” she says. They're having breakfast on the boat, haven't exchanged much more than _good morning_ since she got up, sat down to the meal he had already prepared. 

Tom – _Jacob_ – looks up. Smiles in that playful way of his. ”What do you mean, Liz?”

”Tom Keen, the man I... thought you were. The one I married. I don't miss him.”

She could be mistaken, but thinks she sees hurt in his eyes. Then he looks down into his bowl of cereal, takes a spoonful. ”How come?”

Her own breakfast of eggs, toast and bacon, lies untouched on her plate. ”I thought at first, when I... when I held you prisoner. When I realized I still... had feelings for you. I told myself 'you're not over _Tom_ , but this isn't Tom, you just need to accept that and you'll stop...'”

”Wanting to sleep with me?” he says, a wry smile this time.

”Loving you,” she says. ”The way my life turned out, with the job, with Reddington... the Tom I knew... where would he have fit into this life?” She takes a sip of tea, it's lukewarm now, but rich and spicy with bergamot. ”The Tom that couldn't fight, couldn't handle a... a weapon. I wouldn't have been able to tell him about what was going on, he wouldn't have understood... wouldn't have been safe for him to know - ”

”And it would have made you lonely,” says the man across the table, who looks like Tom Keen, but isn't. ”You would have been lonely in a life with him.”

”He would have been, too," she says. "Keeping everything from him, all that's been happening... how could we have kept together through all of those secrets?” She reflects on the absurdity of them speaking of Tom as someone else, someone she left behind. But then again, in a way, he is.

Tom drinks his tea, mildened with milk and a bit of cream.

”We almost had a child,” she says then. ”We almost... we almost became parents, Tom. How could you have been willing to go through with that... knowing it wasn't real?”

”I _wanted_ my life with you to be real, Liz. I wanted it to be real so badly that I made myself believe... that if I had a kid with you, it would be.” He looks at her. ”I don't regret that.”

She shakes her head. ”Between who you... turned out to be, and my job, and Reddington...” she laughs a little, although it hurts, thinking about the baby that was almost theirs, the child that they could have had. ”... imagine a child in the middle of that chaos.”

”Yeah, I know.”

There's a long silence. She wills herself to finish her food, breakfast being the most important meal, and all that. Tom drinks orange juice and won't quite look at her. The sea rocks the boat and she thinks about the moment when she realized there was truth in what Reddington had implied about Tom. There had been a period of time, a few months, when she had been angry enough, had hated him enough not to love him. That had been easy. It stopped being easy after she saved him from dying from her bullet, and couldn't quite make herself believe that doing so had been all about the answers he could give her.

When she kept him in chains and struggled to stay away.

He breaks the silence. ”I'm glad you don't miss him.” It doesn't sound entirely true, but she might be imagining that. She holds her cup like a comfort between both hands, almost lets the conversation die away before speaking again.

”I do miss our life, sometimes. Friday night movies, falling asleep in your lap before they ended.” He laughs a little. ”Walking the dog together in the evenings.”

”I'm sorry,” he says.

”It wasn't just your fault our life together – _that_ life – ended. It was my job, too. And Reddington. So much of it was Reddington.”

”I know, but still.”

”If you had really been him – Tom Keen – my job... Reddington... it would've gotten between us. It might have taken time, but...”

He nods. ”I know, Liz.”

”I'm sorry about that,” she says. ”I'm sorry I would've let it.”

”You don't owe me an apology.” He puts his hand on her lower arm, where it rests on the table, her hand around the empty cup. She thinks about how they've circled back; how they broke up and apart and now they're here again, together, both of them new to each other after everything that has happened since she entered the Post Office. How they met twice; first he was Tom Keen, the shy teacher. Then he was this man; the one that can handle himself in war. The soldier, the chameleon. The one that stayed when he could've run because she asked him to. How she fell in love with both of them.

He says ”and Liz... my name isn't Tom. Try -”

”I know, I know.” He looks at her with playful eyes, as if he is daring her to say it. ”... Jacob.” It doesn't quite sit right with her, he doesn't look like a Jacob. _Jacob Phelps,_ she thinks. _Jake. Did his friends call him that when he was a child? _He has told her about Tom Keen's childhood, but she doubts more than fragments of it is true. She knows nothing about Jacob's, about his life before the Major. She'll ask him, some day, when there is time.__

__She used to love Tom. He was a good man. Jacob isn't, not quite, but she loves him, too. ”Jacob. It's really good to have you.”_ _

__He grins all teeth. She has butterflies like a damn teenager._ _

__”More tea?” he asks, takes both of their cups to the countertop and pours Earl Grey from the electric kettle. It's really not that different, this wednesday morning, from the mornings in the Keen apartment during two years of blissful ignorance._ _

__Not at all that different._ _


End file.
